The honorary degree recipients at Dartmouth’s June 9 Commencement will be, clockwise from top left: Roger Federer, the Commencement speaker; Mira Murati, Thayer ’12; Paul Nakasone; Richard Ranger ’74; Roy Vagelos; Mung Chiang; Joy Buolamwini; Liz Cheney; and, center, John Urschel.
Dartmouth College, of Hanover, New Hampshire, USA, has announced that it will award Richard Ranger, missionary lecturer in Business and Law at Uganda Christian University (UCU), an honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters at the College’s 253rd Commencement on June 9.
Each year, a member of the Dartmouth 50th reunion class is chosen to receive this award in recognition of service to the Dartmouth community and the broader world. Richard, a member of Dartmouth’s Class of 1974 that will celebrate its 50th Reunion in June, has been selected for this year’s honor.
Each year prospective honorary degree recipients—scholars, artists, innovators, public servants, philanthropists, and others who have made extraordinary contributions to their respective fields and society at large—are nominated by members of the Dartmouth community. The confidential nominations are reviewed by the Council on Honorary Degrees, which selects the honorands in consultation with the president and the Board of Trustees.
In addition to Richard Ranger, this year’s recipients are:
- Joy Buolamwini, a computer scientist, artist, and founder of the Algorithmic Justice League;
- Liz Cheney, former U.S. representative from Wyoming and vice chair of the House Jan. 6 committee;
- Mung Chiang, president of Purdue University;
- Commencement speaker Roger Federer, philanthropist and former tennis champion;
- Mira Murati, Thayer ’12, chief technology officer of OpenAI;
- Paul Nakasone, retired director of the National Security Agency and commander, U.S. Cyber Command;
- John Urschel, a mathematician and former Baltimore Ravens guard; and
- Roy Vagelos, philanthropist and retired chairman and CEO of Merck & Co. and retired chairman of Regeneron
At UCU along with his wife, Catherine, Richard serves as a missionary with the Society of Anglican Missionaries and Senders (SAMS), based in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, USA. Prior to coming to UCU in 2020, Richard spent 43 years as a negotiator, environmental compliance manager, and community and government relations specialist in the oil and gas industry in the western United States, Alaska, and Washington, D.C. From that background, he now lectures in business and law at UCU. Dartmouth’s announcement describes this second career as reflecting “his lifelong commitment to service, his faith, and his sense of adventure.”
“I am humbled beyond belief at this award,” Richard says. “As many who know me know, I am deeply loyal to Dartmouth and to the education that I was blessed with there, and the gift of so many friendships from the Dartmouth community. As someone who has served my class as its Newsletter Editor for some 40 years, I know the many stories of achievement, character, and conscience that distinguish our class. Such a recognition could easily have gone to any of a number of my classmates and have been richly deserved. That it is coming to me is a gift beyond measure.”
Richard adds: “As a missionary, I’m also very conscious of the fact that it’s a rare missionary who is awarded an honorary degree. The four years we have spent in the company of people serving in mission and serving the needs of a broken world in so many ways have introduced us not just to colleagues, but to true heroes. I’m reminded of this every day here at UCU, which was initially founded by a missionary minister as a seminary, who got here to Uganda by walking from the Indian Ocean coast.”
At UCU, alongside UCU colleagues, Richard has taught Corporate Governance and Business Ethics in the School of Business, and Oil and Gas Law in the Faculty of Law.
Along with Catherine, Richard has served as a mentor for individual students. Together they host a weekly cell fellowship from the patio of their campus Tech Park apartment. And for the past two years, Richard has served as site coordinator for installation of a solar thermal water heating system for the campus dining hall – a joint effort by engineering students from Dartmouth and from UCU.
“To have seen students from the two universities work together and build together across frontiers of distance and culture is simply the most rewarding job I have ever had,” Richard said.
As a person of faith, he gives any glory for the Dartmouth award to God, adding appreciation for the opportunity to serve at UCU.
“Not everyone is in such a position,” he said. “Our hope is that the highlighting of our story through the award Dartmouth is giving me will lead others to ask whether and how they might serve. Because it’s possible – and because in a broken world our hearts, hands, and talents are needed.”
Richard said he is “blessed to be able to do this work in a place that I love, in the company of the woman I love, among Ugandan friends” in a place that “challenges us to learn every day.”
“To have an honorary degree from my alma mater on top of all of that is an incredible blessing,” he said.
